While Madonna and Lady Gaga may have played nice for the cameras at M’s illustrious Oscar after party last year in 2019 (which is ten years ago in 2020 time)–mainly because LG was the “darling” of the awards show thanks to A Star Is Born–the “reductive” qualities of the latter can still not help but be noticed. Particularly after Lady Gaga–the “show stealer” of last night’s VMAs (which wasn’t hard to do considering the shit state of pop culture right now)–performed a medley of tracks from her latest album, Chromatica, complete with gas mask regalia to reflect the “toxic” times we live in (by the way, still wondering how Britney never ended up performing in a gas mask for her own signature hit called “Toxic”). Joined with backup dancers in “normal” masks (that is to say, surgical) for “911,” “Rain On Me” (featuring fellow Madonna acolyte, Ariana Grande) and “Stupid Love,” the entire affair smacked of Madonna’s own past usage of gas masks.
As usual ahead of the game when it comes to knowing what’s going to trend, Madonna conceived of a punk rock costume for the first segment of her 2001 Drowned World Tour. Opening with the eponymous “Drowned World/Substitute For Love” (still an underrated cut from Ray of Light), the song led seamlessly into Music‘s visceral “Impressive Instant” (the color palette of which is heavily mirrored in the VMAs rendition of “Rain On Me” in particular), whereupon Madonna is joined by her bevy of gas mask bedecked backup dancers. While Lady Gaga declared during one of last night’s acceptance speeches that her mission has always been to “spread joy through culture, through dance, through music,” she has often held back in terms of embracing her darker side (with the video for “Marry the Night” being the full extent and apex of that ability). This, of course, is often hard for a pre-Billie Eilish pop star to do (and the jury is still out on whether Eilish should really be classified as such, because, oh yeah, Gen Z doesn’t like classifications at all). For LG, her Pollyanna tendencies–manifest in using some kind of drowning but being able to swim if you make it to the middle of the ocean during a storm metaphor in another acceptance speech of the night–take away from the fearlessness required to go the full nine yards with her use of “edgy” imagery. Yes, no one would argue she hasn’t been “edgy” with her aesthetic, but beneath that lies little in the way of real depth–though there is plenty of the faux variety. Indeed, she embodies a sort of antithesis to the phrase “still waters run deep,” for her exterior is not “still” at all, which is why, perhaps, there isn’t too much churning beneath the surface.
In Madonna’s case, she stopped giving a fuck about pleasing the masses long ago, but that moment is perhaps most easily pinpointable to The Girlie Show, her 1993 world tour that would become her last before waiting an entire eight years to take her music on the road again on that scale. Skipping over most of the U.S. for it (save for her precious New York, one date in Philly and one date in Auburn Hills near her hometown in Michigan), Madonna was thumbing her nose at the conventionality of American audiences. At their easily ruffled feathers–especially when it came to “dealing with” such “sensitive imagery” as what she was showcasing at that time in her career (primarily of the sexual variety).
But Madonna didn’t stop doing that ever, least of all with Drowned World, and had reached a point where she decided she had no desire or need to cater to audiences, whether fans or otherwise casual listeners. This tour, in fact, remains one of her most violent and tenebrous. “Impressive Instant” being a case in point, filled with frantic, distraught choreography that reflected not only her own state, but that of the world’s (lest we forget, 2001 was the year Bush took office illegally, as well as the year of the September 11th attacks–causing M to reschedule her Los Angeles date that month to the 15th out of respect). So it is that her primal nature shines forth in a way that it hadn’t since the days of Blond Ambition’s “Causing A Commotion” performance, in which she pantomimed beating the shit out of her backup singers (maybe inspired by some of the “moves” she learned from Sean Penn during their marriage). Here, she does it to her dancers, the masked enemies that, in many ways, echo the vibe of those in Watchmen.
Madonna would again bring the gas mask back into her live performance oeuvre in 2019, at the Eurovision competition in Tel Aviv (where she controversially chose to portray two dancers wearing the Israeli and Palestinian flag on their jackets as they joined hands–much to the dismay of the Israelis). First singing “Like A Prayer” in honor of the record’s thirtieth anniversary that year, Madonna then led into “Future” from Madame X as her dressed-in-monk-attire dancers flung off their robes to reveal themselves wearing gas masks featuring flower adornments for an ironic contrast. And so, while Lady Gaga might have not been “aware” that anything she can do, Madonna can (and already has done) better, she attempted her best to lend a “fresh take” to the gas mask shtick as a result of wanting to portray COVID-19 solidarity and resonance. Yet there was almost something more dystopian about LG seeking to reflect 2020’s dystopianism (in addition to the fact that MTV wanted to play up that element with their use of audience members flickering in and out on the Zoom-inspired screen model).
Elsewhere in the intellectual desert of the 2020 VMAs, Miley Cyrus, too, can’t deny that her “homage” to the anniversary of “Wrecking Ball” (even though it isn’t a milestone year for doing so) was decidedly Madonnaesque as she mounted a disco ball the same way M did for “Express Yourself” during The Girlie Show. While fans of Gaga and Cyrus will balk that Madonna doesn’t have the monopoly on gas masks and disco balls, she certainly makes better use of them. These two pop stars she’s given birth to, instead, do not imbue these props with the same level of thematic weight. It’s all froth, with the supposed substance behind it about independence and unity, respectively (with Miley announcing “I don’t belong to anyone” in “Midnight Sky” and Gaga spouting about how we’re all one at various moments), feeling as washed up as people seem to think Madonna is.
